|
By
writing his own version of the story of Rostam and
Sohrab found in the classical Persian epic, The
Shahnama, the British Victorian Matthew Arnold has
provided an illuminating perspective for examining the
older work. At
first glance, Arnold’s Sohrab
and Rustum, published in 1853, might appear to be a
literary improvement upon the episodic, tenth century
story-telling of Ferdowsi.
The latter constructed a chronological narrative
of separate events sprawling from Rostam’s single
visit with Tahmina at Samangan which resulted in his
fathering Sohrab, to the young Sohrab’s growing up and
questioning his mother about his father’s identity,
and finally, to the tragic killing of the son by his
unknowing father. Arnold’s
different ordering of essentially the same events is
strikingly ingenious and, on the surface, more
controlled. In
conventional epic fashion, he begins “in the middle of
things,” at dawn of the day on which the manly Sohrab
will meet his unidentified father in combat.
The entire action is confined within the
boundaries of this single day, providing narrative
condensation and greater dramatic intensity.
Sohrab’s identity and the details of his birth
and childhood are revealed during powerful flashback
scenes at the moment of his death.
And, as a highly effective climax, Arnold’s
Rustum has always believed himself, mistakenly, to be
the father of a girl, rather than a son, and thus is
doubly amazed and horrified by the truth, in this
version.
Arnold’s
ingenuity and control are superficial, however.
A comparison of the two works on a different
level, that of tragedy, reveals his overriding moral
concern which prevents his development of the story’s
full potential in this genre.
In contrast, a capacity for recognizing ambiguity
in Ferdowsi causes the latter’s story to operate on
the highest level of serious tragedy, particularly in
the areas of characterization, conflict, and in the
quality of recognition and catharsis
achieved. Use
of the Victorian work as a sort of foil for the Persian
one in these areas clarifies the depth and consistency
of Ferdowsi’s view and the more sophisticated nature
of his morality.
Arnold’s
need to instruct his audience on the dangers of
excessive pride interfered with his aesthetic sense,
causing him to characterize his hero in crude, broad
strokes. His
Rustum is a man motivated solely by pride, who very
clearly “learns his lesson.”
We meet him when he is sitting, sullen, in his
tent, miffed that Kai Khosroo may no longer favor him
above all others. When he is finally persuaded to fight, he does so only to
squelch the rumor that he fears youthful competition.
And his motivation for fighting anonymously is
equally as monolithic and self-centered, according to
Arnold: he
doesn’t want to be considered equal “in single fight
with any mortal man.”
When he makes a “compassionate” speech to
Sohrab, before engaging him in battle for the first
time, his offer to take Sohrab to Iran with him, to be
his son, is probably best interpreted as an attempt to
subordinate the younger man to himself by means of the
father-son relationship.
And his crucial refusal to acknowledge his
identity is based, solely, as Arnold tells it, on his
fear that once he has disclosed that he is Rustum, his
opponent will refuse to fight, and later boast that they
“changed gifts and went on equal terms away.”
Finally, this heavy-handed characterization
becomes grotesque, as Arnold’s description makes it
painfully clear that the hateful Rustum who taunts the
dying Sohrab is simply not
a well man:
“Rustum
had risen,
And
stood erect, trembling with rage; his club
He
left to lie, but had now regained his spear,
Whose
fiery point now in his mail’d right-hand
Blazed
bright and baleful, like that autumn-star,
The
baleful sign of fevers; dust had soiled
His
stately crest, and dimmed his glittering arms.
His
breast heaved, his lips foam’d, and twice his voice
Was
choked with rage:”
Viewed
in juxtaposition to Arnold, Ferdowsi’s natural
tendency to see ambiguities comes into sharper focus.
His Rostam is a character of much greater
subtlety and shading, who is not only more interesting
and realistic, but also a man whose tragedy affects the
reader in a serious way.
Like Arnold’s Rustum, Rostam is flawed by a
quality of blinding pride.
Tahmina evidently learned this during one short
night of acquaintanceship, for she warns Sohrab that if
Rostam were to become aware of his powerful son, “he
would become boastful and overbearing.”
And like Rustum and Achilles, he refuses to go to
war when he believes he has not been deferred to by his
king. Ferdowsi
has Sohrab make several references to Rostam’s aging,
which indicate that his fear of being surpassed by a
younger man is a definite part of his motivation.
And when he twice refuses to disclose his
identity to Sohrab, we tend to conclude, along with
Arnold, that he wishes to keep his name unstained,
particularly after his near-defeat during the first
encounter. Yet,
despite this flaw, the Rostam of The
Shahnama is not a totally marred personality like
Arnold’s Rustum -- a madman, foaming at the mouth,
with whom the reader cannot identify.
He is, rather, “a man better than ourselves,
but possessed of a fatal flaw.”
Ferdowsi may not have read Aristotle, but he saw
life and human beings clearly enough to understand the
elements of tragedy. His Rostam is not a monolith, but a complex combination of
exceptional qualities mixed with a proud inability to
recognize his human weakness.
He is a man of whom Tahmina can also say “Not
since the World-Creator brought the universe into
existence has there ever appeared such a knightly
warrior as Rostam... .”
His superiority over Arnold’s sullen Rustum
becomes clear when his pride is overcome by his love of
country, as he is convinced by the nobles that he should
not allow Iran to suffer because of his own
mistreatment. Ironically,
he goes to war at least partially because he believes it
is a holy struggle, against Divs.
His attempt to be compassionate toward Sohrab,
before the latter has managed to alienate him, is
motivated partially out of his fear of being surpassed,
but also out of the wisdom of experience, which tells
him that this young man is able to see even less than he
himself of the pitfalls that can ensnare mortal men in
battle: He
says gently,
according to the Reuben Levy translation, “My delicate
young man, the earth is hard and cold and the air soft
and warm.” Why
should one so young rush towards death, in other words?
Finally, in Rostam’s crucial refusals to
identify himself, Ferdowsi indicates some possibility of
motivation transcending mere paranoia.
Rostam may refuse out of simultaneous desires to
protect his reputation and to protect the Iranian army.
(If the younger man were to become afraid of
fighting the legendary Rostam, the battle would revert
to the Turanian and Iranian forces.
The fact that Ferdowsi never explains Rostam’s
actions makes this interpretation possible.)
And a third possibility, implicit in the world of
The Shahnama, is that Rostam may refuse because of a momentary whim
brought about by Destiny, which intervenes in all of the
major events of his life.
Whatever
his weaknesses, Ferdowsi’s hero is a man of such
stature that his tragic misfortune provokes not merely
the pity that one would feel for a mad dog, but also an
awesome reminder of one’s own finiteness:
if such a man can err, so can we all.
This type of involvement on the part of the
audience (or, in this case, the reader) is an essential
difference between tragedy and melodrama.
In
addition to the ambivalence which he portrays in
Rostam’s character, Ferdowsi sees an ambivalence which
pervades nature itself, intensifying the tragic
condition of his hero.
Arnold delineates a simple conflict between a
sick and erring man and the natural harmony of a good
universe. (The
fog in Sohrab and
Rustum is pure atmosphere, without the tragic
dimension that Arnold found in the darkness of Dover
Beach.) Nature actually has moral overtones in the Victorian work,
becoming greatly disturbed by the violent sickness of
Rustum:
“And
you would say that sun and stars took part
In
that unnatural conflict; for a cloud
Grew
suddenly in Heaven, and dark’d the sun
Over
the fighters’ heads; and a wind rose
Under
their feet, and moaning swept the plain,
And
in a sandy whirlwind wrapped the pair.”
Rustum’s
eventual recognition of his sickness and his remorse
resolve the conflict for all practical purposes, even
though it is sad, of course, that Sohrab dies!
The Oxus flows tranquilly at the end of
Arnold’s poem. In
the world of The
Shahnama, any lasting resolution is ultimately
impossible, as the drama of tension between good and
evil not only takes place within a man, and between man
and man (Sohrab and Rostam are the opposites of the
treacherous Afrasiyab), but it is part of the basic
nature of all things:
Rostam best sums this up when he says to Sohrab,
between their encounters, “When the sword-ray of the
world-illuminating sun shows itself [tomorrow] there
will be present both a gallows and a [royal] dais, for
this glorious world is subject to the sword.”
There are numerous other references to a dualism
of darkness and light.
In such a world, man becomes, at least partially,
prey to the prevailing tensions.
References to the influence of the heavenly
bodies over human destinies occur frequently:
“Nine moons” pass over Tahmina, and then her
child is born. A
huge, almost malevolent Fate seems to operate against
the characters. The
unfortunate outcome of Tahmina and Rostam is
foreshadowed from the start, in the description of
Tahmina’s mouth as being “small as the heart of a
lover contracted with grief.”
Ironically, even the better qualities of men can
be twisted by Destiny to bring about misfortune. Sohrab lets Rostam go after pinning him down during their
first encounter, “first out of gallantry, next because
it was destinied, and again, without doubt, out of
generosity.”
By
developing this context, Ferdowsi indicates that one’s
understanding of Rostam’s “flaw,” or tragic
blindness, must be considered in light of situations in
which it is impossible to choose a “correct” side
(the Hegelian aspect of the tragedy), and in which it is
nearly impossible to see or to know the truth. Indeed, at times Rostam and Sohrab seem forced to wear
helmets without eye holes, unable to find each other.
In addition to his twice questioning his
opponent, Sohrab makes two other attempts to identify
Rostam, and is either lied to or given inaccurate
information, both times.
Rostam, for his part, actually believes that he
is fighting for Iran, against evil, rather than against
his son: “This
war is fought against Ahriman,” he says, “Such
turmoil is for no human’s sake.”
A quotation from another of Arnold’s works is
strangely appropriate here, for this is surely a
situation in which “ignorant armies clash by night”.
The
kind of understanding derived from reading Ferdowsi’s
work, then, is not merely a narrow discourse upon the
dangers of pride, but a consistent and unified, if
highly tragic, view of life.
Ferdowsi’s story has contemporary relevance
precisely because resolution of tensions is never
actually achieved.
The catharsis arises not from an easy, melodramatic death-bed
reconciliation (in Arnold’s conclusion, even
Rustum’s horse cries), but from our astonished
appreciation of thwarted humans’ continual attempts to
excel. This
human ability to preserve a considerable amount of
heroic integrity in the midst of tension and flux is
what Ferdowsi’s morality is about.
Readers
interested in insight into The Shahnameh
provided by more recent translations than that of Reuben
Levy should investigate acclaimed work by Jerome Clinton
and Dick Davis.
@Melinda Barnhardt, 2002
|
